The CODOH Revisionist Forum

borjastick wrote: ↑Sun Nov 24, 2024 12:31 pm

Nazgul wrote: ↑Sun Nov 24, 2024 8:48 am

Nessie wrote: ↑Sun Nov 24, 2024 8:25 am Revisionists know little to nothing about witnesses. Their sole aim is to dispute anything that a witness says that they do not agree with, even when that witness claim is corroborated. Revisionists are unique in the way they analyse witness testimony, failed to separate hearsay from eyewitnesses and ignoring common witness and memory failings, resulting in the highly unlikely 100% of them have lied, from the earliest reports during the war, to the present day.

A generalization with no facts. When a detective arrests someone on probable cause, they already think a person is guilty, in probability. They will try and catch out the suspect during interrogation, even though their disconfirming statements may be corroborated; perhaps an alibi. The detectives will then investigate this scenario, checking if the alibi or whatever, adds to some truth. The issue is that with very historical cases, facts from observation and hearsay become blurred.

There was a quote from some israeli politician once who said something like 'we don't need evidence, we have witnesses'.

That is an odd quote, since witnesses are a form of evidence. It may be in relation to all the Nazi destruction of physical and other evidence, leaving witnesses as the main source of evidence.

The problem with extreme believers like you know who is that they think that if 1000s say something happened then it must be true. But at the same time ignoring that all flying saucer claims seem to be identical as do alien descriptions.

It is significant that Nazis, German and Ukrainian, civilian Germans and Poles and Jews from multiple nations all agree, when they worked at places such as the Kremas, they saw gas chambers and/or gassings. For such a disparate group, who would not normally cooperate and where there was no opportunity for collusion, to all agree. It is significant that not one single witness who worked in a Krema, or AR camp, states there were no gassings and what happened instead.

Unlike witnesses to flying saucers and aliens, there is evidence to corroborate the gas chambers. Furthermore, alien visits are not physically possible, but Germans building gas chambers are.

They also ignore the fact that almost every person who claimed there were gas chambers in the camps also when questioned admitted they didn't actually see one in use and heard about it third hand or worse. Kitty Hart Moxon and her mates all claim this that and the other while eating from poop bowls and swallowing diamonds yet want to be believed about something they never saw.

That is the difference between hearsay and eyewitness evidence. Historians and the trials used eyewitnesses as their primary source of evidence for gas chambers.

Jews lie and love to tell stories, they live in make believe land where if someone says something it is real (in their mind) but never deal with the harsh reality, scientific fact and evidence. The evidence doesn't suit their claims and subsequent world power and influence. One only has to see the obscene slaughter of innocent women and children currently going on in Gaza to realise these people are animals yet they keep pushing the claim that Hamas is among the population and as such everyone is a fair target. Only yesterday in Lebanon two men on an otherwise deserted beach were fishing calmly and doing nothing wrong to anyone. An israeli drone comes over and obliterates them both. How is that in any way the action of a decent and believable, credible nation?

That is an expression of your bias and motive to believe in Holocaust Denial.

Just to go back to this, there are three main problems with the "Nessie" approach to evaluating witnesses

1) It essentially says that we should overlook errors and contradictions. We are to treat these as neutral to the value of the testimony when they are not. Common sense would tell you that the more inaccurate and contradictory the testimony, the less value it has.

2) It is very prone to Type II error, i.e., the Nessie approach is incapable of detecting false witnesses.* The objective in evaluating witnesses is to accept true witnesses and reject false witnesses. You want to avoid committing errors in both directions. If you grant infinite latitude for errors, this is too skewed toward believing witnesses. It becomes impossible to reject false witnesses and you are setting yourself for lots of type II errors (i.e., believing BS).

3) A secondary implication of this "errors are normal" idea is that witnesses are often not that reliable due to faulty memory, etc. But if this is pushed too far, Nessie is just shooting himself in the foot since the Holocaust depends so heavily on postwar witness statements.

*On this point, I already know what Nessie will say, so let me just go ahead and preempt him. He will say that he uses "corroboration" to determine truthfulness. But in fact he doesn't because if you show him something in a testimony that is demonstrably false (i.e., something that FAILS CORROBORATION under the ordinary meaning of that word) he will say the error is "normal" and so it still passes corroboration! Thus we see that his supposed corroboration/truthfulness test is rigged in favor of accepting the witness (at least whenever it's convenient.)

Archie wrote: ↑Wed Dec 11, 2024 3:26 am Just to go back to this, there are three main problems with the "Nessie" approach to evaluating witnesses

It is not my approach, it is what I was taught at university and in the police and what I argue is supported by multiple studies of witness evidence, memory and recollection.

1) It essentially says that we should overlook errors and contradictions. We are to treat these as neutral to the value of the testimony when they are not. Common sense would tell you that the more inaccurate and contradictory the testimony, the less value it has.

Wrong, do not overlook errors and contradictions, instead investigate and understand why they have happened and how that affects the testimony. Are those issues within the normal range of what is to be expected from witnesses, and is the witness corroborated?

Errors and contradictions are not neutral to the value of the testimony, they reduce its accuracy and credibility, resulting in evidence that has less value. That does not therefore mean it is evidence with no value and can all be dismissed as lies.

2) It is very prone to Type II error, i.e., the Nessie approach is incapable of detecting false witnesses.* The objective in evaluating witnesses is to accept true witnesses and reject false witnesses. You want to avoid committing errors in both directions. If you grant infinite latitude for errors, this is too skewed toward believing witnesses. It becomes impossible to reject false witnesses and you are setting yourself for lots of type II errors (i.e., believing BS).

Assessment of what the witness said, in terms of credibility alone, which is what revisionists do, is incapable of detecting which witnesses are truthful, accurate, mistaken, or are lying. A witness can be credible and a complete liar and vice versa.

Corroboration, which is evidence that is independent of the witness, determines truthfulness. My "approach" as in the method taught at university and in the police, is to listen to what the witness is claiming and then look to see if there is other pertinent evidence and if that evidence fits with, or contradicts the claim. False witnesses to the Holocaust are detected that way. Their claims do not fit other evidence and then evidence is found to prove they were not where they claimed to have been.

Taking opinion on credibility out of the examination of the witness and instead using other evidence to determine truthfulness, the result is a far more accurate assessment of that witness. Revisionists do not like that, because it results in witnesses who they do not want to believe.

3) A secondary implication of this "errors are normal" idea is that witnesses are often not that reliable due to faulty memory, etc. But if this is pushed too far, Nessie is just shooting himself in the foot since the Holocaust depends so heavily on postwar witness statements.

I have not pushed anything too far. I can name witnesses who gave testimony about gassings, who are not reliable and why that is. It is you who has pushed too far, resulting in the claim which you even tried to deny, that 100% of witnesses to gassings are liars and you cannot produce a single witness who was at those places, who you say is telling the truth.

*On this point, I already know what Nessie will say, so let me just go ahead and preempt him. He will say that he uses "corroboration" to determine truthfulness. But in fact he doesn't because if you show him something in a testimony that is demonstrably false (i.e., something that FAILS CORROBORATION under the ordinary meaning of that word) he will say the error is "normal" and so it still passes corroboration! Thus we see that his supposed corroboration/truthfulness test is rigged in favor of accepting the witness (at least whenever it's convenient.)

Can you give an example of that, with a quoted and linked to witness?

If a witness states something that is demonstrably false, such as how many people can fit inside a gas chamber of a certain dimension, that does not fail corroboration, when that witness is corroborated by other witnesses who describe people being crammed inside that gas chamber.

What revisionists are unable to do, is find a witness who states he was at the same place, at the same time, and no one was crammed inside to be gassed, and it was only ever used to store corpses, or as a bomb shelter. If that was the case, then the original witness would not be corroborated and there would be evidence they lied about gassings.

Nessie wrote: ↑Sun Dec 07, 2025 1:34 pm
That means Reder, like most of us, is poor at estimations. You are wrong to use that, as a reason to dismiss the entirety of his evidence.

Reder claimed that the graves were 75,000 sq meters. In contrast, Kola's grave space was a maximum of 5,490 sq meters. I'm going to have to request that you back up your assertion that "studies show" that "most of us" would be off by that much.

Kola's Grave 1 (one of the largest)
Reder: 100m x 25m
Kola: 40m x 12m
More than doubles each dimension

Kola's Grave 21 (one of the smallest)
Reder: 100m x 25m (all graves are uniform)
Kola: 5m x 5m
Length off by 20x(!), width off by 5x

Overall area, Reder is off by more than an order of magnitude.

He also says the graves were of uniform dimensions (false) and regularly shaped (false).

Please provide a citation to a study establishing the typical error range for something like this. And please provide a citation showing people are unable to identify basic shapes or tell that things are different sizes.

I asked AI "how good are we at estimating the length of objects?". The reply;

"Humans are generally not highly accurate at estimating the specific numerical length of objects without visual aids. Accuracy is highly variable and depends heavily on the object's actual size, the distance of the observer, the observer's experience, and whether the estimate is numerical or relative."

"Distance Influences Error:
For short distances (up to about 20 meters), the average error in distance estimation by eye can be around 10-20%.
For longer distances, this error can increase to as much as 50%."

You said Reder estimated 100m x 25m and Kola described Kola: 40m x 12m, so Reder was over 100% out, where an average estimation may be closer to 50% out, but we have already noted he was a poor and unreliable estimator. I did not say that most of us would be out by that much. You have quoted another who noted how poor Reder was.

As for the issue about grave shapes, it is likely when Reder saw them, they had been dug and were regular. But exhuming corpses and the grave robbing resulted in the shapes Kola found.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... ing-height

"Height and dimensional estimates are inconsistent and variable; sometimes right, sometimes wrong, but frequently not systematic. A wise detective or judge will not, therefore, put too much stock in this type of evidence."

So, even though Reder was particularly bad at estimating distance and size, that does not mean his evidence can be dismissed.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... rm-length/

"The human brain doesn't quite get depth right, however. Research has shown that people overestimate the distance of an object closer than a few tens of centimeters away, and underestimate it for objects more than a few tens of centimeters away, where 1 cm is about 4 inches, according to study researcher Fulvio Domini, professor of cognitive linguistic and psychological sciences at Brown University, and his colleagues. This might help explain why a big distance (like 35 feet) is hard to gauge."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 8916300190

"Past studies have consistently demonstrated that human observers cannot accurately perceive environmental distances."

"As can be seen from the table, the majority of the observers significantly under- or overestimated (60 percent), while the remaining 40 percent of the observers made judgments that were essentially accurate.

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/11/23/11510

"This study was designed to better understand how variability across environments in the presence of familiar spatial cues can influence spatial perception ability. Specifically, we investigated participants’ ability to determine the absolute distance and relative size of stimuli under three environmental conditions.
Results confirmed difficulties in distance and size estimation, in particular under the moderate visual cues environment (environment 2: space scape). However, even with maximum visual cues (environment 1: cityscape), perceived distance significantly deviated from the actual distance, and was consistently underestimated."

You didn't answer my question. I asked you 1) to cite the literature to show what magnitude of error is typical, and 2) show that Reder falls within the normal range.

Here is one abstract that has some actual numbers.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.135 ... articles.2

The purpose of this study was to determine the accuracy of the typical adult's ability to view, then estimate, distances along a roadway. A survey was conducted along a roadway, where 123 subjects were asked to look at, and then estimate the distance to common objects along the roadway. The entire population tended to underestimate distances to objects that were from 20 to 400 feet away. After none outliers were identified and removed, the average estimation error was –23.4%. The variation in performance among individuals was extremely large, with error extremes ranging from –96% to +71%. An analysis of the percentage error in estimation revealed that police performed as well as the rest of the population. The age of the subjects and their rating of their own vision acuity made no statistically significant difference in their average estimation error. Males had significantly lower estimation error than females, as did subjects who rated themselves highly with respect to their distance estimation ability.

This says that empirically for longer distances the tendency is to UNDERESTIMATE. A 23% underestimate would mean that for a 40M distance, the typical person might guess ~31M on average. That's actually not that bad.

It does say there were big outliers who were way off. But these people are outliers, i.e., NOT typical. Most of them are probably innumerate/kind of dumb. And even the maximum/outlier overestimate is only +71% whereas Reder is overestimating the graves by +100% to +2,000%. Reder is off-the-charts wrong.

You have misrepresented this research. These studies have not found that most people double, triple, quadruple distances as a matter of course.

Archie wrote: ↑Sun Dec 07, 2025 6:32 pm You didn't answer my question. I asked you 1) to cite the literature to show what magnitude of error is typical, and 2) show that Reder falls within the normal range.

I provided you with multiple articles to show that type of error is typical and that Reder is not within the normal range, he is worse than average. In another thread, you quoted historian Tregenza discussing that Reder and Gerstein were not accurate witnesses.

Here is one abstract that has some actual numbers.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.135 ... articles.2

The purpose of this study was to determine the accuracy of the typical adult's ability to view, then estimate, distances along a roadway. A survey was conducted along a roadway, where 123 subjects were asked to look at, and then estimate the distance to common objects along the roadway. The entire population tended to underestimate distances to objects that were from 20 to 400 feet away. After none outliers were identified and removed, the average estimation error was –23.4%. The variation in performance among individuals was extremely large, with error extremes ranging from –96% to +71%. An analysis of the percentage error in estimation revealed that police performed as well as the rest of the population. The age of the subjects and their rating of their own vision acuity made no statistically significant difference in their average estimation error. Males had significantly lower estimation error than females, as did subjects who rated themselves highly with respect to their distance estimation ability.

This says that empirically for longer distances the tendency is to UNDERESTIMATE. A 23% underestimate would mean that for a 40M distance, the typical person might guess ~31M on average. That's actually not that bad.

It does say there were big outliers who were way off. But these people are outliers, i.e., NOT typical. Most of them are probably innumerate/kind of dumb. And even the maximum/outlier overestimate is only +71% whereas Reder is overestimating the graves by +100% to +2,000%. Reder is off-the-charts wrong.

You have misrepresented this research. These studies have not found that most people double, triple, quadruple distances as a matter of course.

No I have not, since as you say, Reder was a "big outlier", he was spectacularly wrong with his estimation. The quote states a range of -96% to -71% and Reder was at about 110%. Tregenza and I am sure other historians have also noticed that, as he is not presented as an accurate, reliable on the details, eyewitness. What you will hopefully start to understand, is that all that means is he is very poor at estimating the size of the graves. It does not mean he lied about there being graves, as graves are evidenced by other eyewitnesses and archaeological surveys.

The size of the graves, how long gassings took, how many people fitted inside the gas chambers, are all estimations, made by witnesses, often years, if not decades after the event. I have linked you to and you have found another study, that proves when people are asked to estimate, they can be spectacularly wrong. That does not mean they lied.

As an analogy, the mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017. It lasted about an hour, 60 people were killed and c1000 rounds were fired. If you ask the c22,000 people who had attended the festival, how long did the shooting last, how many were killed and how many rounds were fired, before any of that had got into the news and people could read about it and have their answers influenced, you would get c22,000 different combinations of answers, with likely some people who are at Reder, 110% out levels of inaccuracy. Someone will say it lasted 3 hours, someone will say they think 200 people were killed and someone will say 10,000 rounds were fired. Does that mean they lied and no mass shooting happened? No, it does not. It merely means that those people had very inaccurate recall of the details.